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Before I Do, is well written, witty, and hilarious. There are some darker elements to the story, but everything ties together wonderfully. The side characters, Hillary, Clara, Paul, Granny Parker and Miranda were people I absolutely adored. And while the other side characters like Audrey’s mom yeah I have nothing to say about them cause if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. R]eaders will cheer Audrey on as she disentangles herself from the what-might-have-been love triangle….Cousens ( Just Haven’t Met You Yet) offers up a chaste, heartwarming romance.”— Library Journal Bottom line: Was a time capsule recently discovered in England? Because I refuse to believe this was written this year. The story really begins when she meets her nemesis: The “Quinn” who stole her name (actually it was his mother who did the deed). The story is told in jumping timelines with the chapters dated previous New Year’s and then the current timeline. Minnie learns that Quinn’s life isn’t the charmed life she sees on the surface. And poor Minnie….school children are SO MEAN!!
Quinn is both everything and nothing like Minne imagined. What transpires between the two is a friendship and it’s a beautiful thing. The day before she’s supposed to marry Josh, a great guy who she’s known for years, she gets hit with a blast from the past in the form of Fred, someone she spent a wonderful day with 6 years ago and then never saw again until he shows up at the rehearsal dinner as the date of Josh’s sister. These characters were fun to get to know, and Cousens did an amazing job flushing out each and every one of them. While this book is a romance, the added mother/daughter relationship and how it impacted Audrey so significantly is what takes this book from an average rom-com to a romance with more depth. It starts out in the prologue with something going wrong at Audrey and Josh’s wedding and immediately caught my attention. From there it follows several timelines: the wedding, Audrey and Josh’s story and a story of Audrey meeting a man named Fred at a photobooth and spending one serendipitous day together as well as her mothers many husbands, one of them being quite abusive. Thank you Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for providing me with an arc of 'Before I Do' in exchange for an honest review.
Before I Do
Atkins commented: "It is a match made in heaven to be publishing Sophie at Hodder – as a reader, I have adored her from afar over the past couple of years, and am so excited to get to work with her now as her editor. Sophie is hugely talented and full of unforgettable and original ideas, brilliant characters and stories that marry genuine heart with plenty of humour. I could not be more delighted to take her books to the next level at Hodder and to introduce readers to Before I Do later this year – it’s genuinely Sophie’s best book yet, and I know her readers are going to be as obsessed with it as I am.” My first Sophie Cousens but certainly not my last. Highly recommend to all you rom-com lovers out there! 4 stars!
Were some of the situations in the book so over the top they seemed to come straight out of 13 Going on 30? What would you do if, at your engagement party, your fiance’s sister brings your first love (and the one that got away) as her date? If you’re a Bridget Jones person over a Love Actually / Notting Hill / whatever, this might also be the book for you. Sorry, my vitriolic hatred of Bridget Jones is showing. Utterly charming, clever, and truthfully romantic, Before I Do is a breath of fresh air. Sophie Cousens' books always surprise and delight. --Lauren Ho, author of Lucie Yi Is Not a Romantic and Last Tang Standing At twenty-two, Audrey met Fred after finding his photo at a photo booth. The instant she finds his photo she’s intrigued, and then, she leaves photos of her own in the same photo booth, hoping he’ll find them and somehow, he does. When they meet, they have one perfect day together.
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Parts of this story are a lot of fun! I really liked Miranda and would totally be her friend in real life! First let me say that I ADORED Sophie Cousens’ last book I Just Haven’t Met You Yet. She showed then, and again with this one, that she knows how to both embrace and poke fun at the tropes so prevalent in this genre, which led to some fun meta moments. Her writing is on pitch and thoughtful, balancing serious ideas, like family trauma and the nature of love and commitment, with a light-hearted touch. It will likely resonate with anyone who’s been in a relationship, married or not, and there were so many points I related to.
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